Her bones ached. Her muscles screamed for mercy. Her back felt stretched like a tightrope. Rainbow strained at her physical limits, keeping her vocalizations to a minimum, but couldn’t keep every grunt and snort contained.
Big Mac looked sidelong at her as a misstep caused her to nearly trip. He paused mid-stride to let her catch up.
She glared at him, blinking the sweat out of her eyes. “Don’t you… nngh... say a word, Mac.” After catching another breath a moment, her eyes crossed and she sighed. “Not even a ‘yup’.”
He nodded and let her take the lead.
A rock slipped out from beneath her back hoof, and the log atop her back slipped off her powerful wing joints and down into the weaker small of her back. It nearly cost her her stance, and extracted a yelp of pain from her.
Big Mac quickly lowered himself so Rainbow could hoist the wood back into a more comfortable position, cradling the lumber in the crook of her wings..
“I meant to do that…”
Applejack crested the hill hastily with a bright smile. “There y’all are! I came to tell you that I pulled out a barrel of--” Her wife of a few days looked her way and smiled before blinking between her, her brother, and the large log that she balanced with the stallion. Apparently she caught her strain on her face.
"You doin' okay there, sugarcube?"
The pegasus scowled at her burning legs.
"Fan-flippin'-tastic," Rainbow snarled against the stress, taking short breaths and rigid steps.
Applejack frowned and looked up at Big Mac. "Mac, do you think you could finish draggin' this one back on yer own?"
The large red stallion, who hadn't appeared to have even broken a sweat, gave a simple nod. "Eeyup."
"On his own, nothin'!" Rainbow snapped, frowning at her mate with an irritable flick of her tail. "We got this. It's all downhill from here anyway."
Applejack gave her a once-over and stepped her direction. "You sure? You're lookin' a little tuckered out, darlin'..."
"I'll rest when we get back," she grunted, her neck muscles pulsing with effort. "Then we all sit down and have lunch together." She took another shaky step.
The two siblings shared a worried look.
"Rainbow," her wife said endearingly. A disarming orange hoof swept through the rainbow-patterned tresses, drowning out the achiness of her legs. "It's only ten o'clock."
A pit of despair formed deep in the pegasus's gut.
"You can't be serious!" she voice-broke. "It feels like we've been out here forever!"
Applejack smiled warmly and nuzzled her softly. The farmgirl turned to her brother as she felt the harness strapping the wood to her back slacken, and the sudden weightlessness of the log as it was lifted off her back by her much more solidly-built wife failed to provide any relief.
She slumped to the ground as Big Mac continued on down the hill, his heavy hoofsteps fading into the treeline as he dragged the tree off towards the farmhouse.
Her wife remained behind. She couldn't help wishing she'd followed her big brother. There was nothing Rainbow wanted more in that moment than to be alone; to disappear into her humility and simply cease to exist.
Applejack apparently noticed, and sat cutie mark to cutie mark with her, her softer orange coat soothing against her thicker pelt.
"What can I say, darlin'?" she asked tenderly, slipping her muzzle beneath Rainbow's chin, just where she liked it.
The familiar sensation didn't make her feel any better.
She sniffed. "Why do we gotta build onto the house anyway?!" she squeaked, her voice wavering atop the unstable dam that was holding back her tears. "What's wrong with your room?! It's been good enough for the past two years! Why can't it keep being good enough for us?"
She couldn't cry. Her damaged pride wouldn't survive it.
Applejack’s eyes glistened in sympathy. She reached up and cupped her cheek and gave her a soft smile.
The tears started.
“It’s just not fair,” she whimpered. “Why do I always have to be so useless on this stupid farm?!” She made a desperate attempt to disguise her anguish as anger and yanked at the harness wrapped uselessly around her. She threw it to the ground and stomped it beneath her hooves.
Applejack wrapped her hooves around her to placate her. “Rainbow Dash,” she pleaded, “don’t be upset. You know you ain’t useless here.”
“Then why can’t I help build my own stupid house?!” the pegasus wept, turning away. “I can’t even carry a few pieces of wood back to make it with. It was supposed to be you and me, AJ… Not… you and Big Mac doing all the work.”
She felt a pair of powerful legs engulf her comfortingly. Her breath hitched in her throat, making her sound exactly like the blubbering little foal she felt like.
“Sweetheart, I know you wanna help more than anything, but…” Applejack stopped mid-sentence. “Look, you know there are some things about your job I could never help you with… matter-of-fact, there are parts of my job I can’t even do without ya.”
Rainbow turned to look at her.
“What I’m sayin’ is… maybe heavy-liftin’ just ain’t a pegasus thing.” Her earth pony mate nuzzled her soft, insulated coat. “Maybe you just ain't built for it. Your bones are built for flyin' and bein' all quick-like. Yer better at handlin’ the weather and cold than I ever could. And I sure as hay can’t even touch how you make rain for the farm and everything. And you sure do errands in Ponyville a lot quicker than Applebloom was ever able to.” Her wife crossed her eyes. “Uhhh… usually.”
Rainbow rubbed her snout against the back of her leg and sniffed. “Just that one day when Spitfire was in-town doing autographs…”
“Still, you see what I’m sayin’?” Applejack smiled. The pegasus couldn’t help but chuckle through her tears. “And you’ll see. When we’re ready to put it all together, ain’t nopony gonna get all the nailin’ done quicker than you.” She paused and smirked. “And you’d want it done in time enough for us to have our honeymoon, right?”
She looked at her mate with a confused expression. “Honeymoon?” she asked. “But… you don’t wanna go to Canterlot or Las Pegasus or something?”
Applejack half-lidded her eyes and adopted a thin, sultry smile, stepping around the pegasus. “Now what in heaven’s name could we get up to there that we couldn’t have more privacy and fun doin’ here?”
Rainbow grinned, her bad mood evaporating by a telltale spread of her wings. “Okay. Good point.”
“Now,” she said, kissing her cheek, “why don’t you run and see what’s takin’ Applebloom so long with all that paint while I go and pour you a nice cup of Heaven?”